Conceived in the wake of several distressing personal events, 808s & Heartbreak marked a major musical departure from West's previous rap records, instead featuring a sparse, electronic sound and West singing through an Auto-Tune vocal processor. His lyrics explore themes of loss, alienated fame, and heartache, while the album's production abandons conventional hip hop sounds in favor of a minimalist sonic palette, which includes prominent use of the titular Roland TR-808 drum machine.

808s & Heartbreak debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 450,145 copies in its first week. Despite varying responses from listeners, the album received positive reviews from most critics and was named one of 2008's best records in several year-end lists. Four singles were released to promote the record, including the hit singles "Love Lockdown" and "Heartless".

808s & Heartbreak has since been cited as a prominent influence on subsequent hip hop, pop, and R&B music, as a new wave of rappers, singers, and producers came to adopt aspects of its style and thematic content.[1] By 2013, it had sold 1.7 million copies in the United States.

Following the release of his third studio album Graduation, the remainder of 2007 and the following year featured events that profoundly affected Kanye West. On November 10, 2007, West's mother Donda West died due to complications arising following cosmetic surgery involving a tummy tuck and breast reduction procedure.[2] Months later, West and fiancée Alexis Phifer ended their engagement and their long-term intermittent relationship, which had begun in 2002.[3] At the same time, West struggled to adapt to his newfound pop star status he once strove to achieve, often becoming the subject of media scrutiny.[4] The loss, loneliness and longing for companionship and a sense of normality served to inspire 808s & Heartbreak.[5] West stated that "This album was therapeutic – it's lonely at the top."[6]

West felt that his emotions could not be fully expressed simply through rapping, which he said had limitations. There were "melodies that were in me", he explained. "What was in me I couldn't stop."[7] West went to classify 808s & Heartbreak as a pop album, asserting his disdain towards the contemporary backlash to the concept of pop music and expressed admiration for what some pop stars have accomplished in their careers.[8] He later stated that he wishes to present the music as a new genre called "pop art," clarifying that he was well aware of the visual art movement of the same name and wished to present a musical equivalent.[9] "Either call it 'pop' or 'pop art,' either one I'm good with," he later stated.[9]

West (center) working on the album with his former mentor, producer No I.D. (left).

The album was recorded over a span of approximately three weeks from September to October 2008.[10] Recording sessions took place at Glenwood Studios in Burbank, California and at Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii.[11] As implied by its title, 808s & Heartbreak prominently features the Roland TR-808 drum machine. Drawing inspiration from 1980s synthpop and electropop performers such as Phil Collins, Gary Numan, TJ Swan and Boy George, West felt that the 808 is a resourceful instrument that can be used to evoke emotion; the concept was introduced to him by Jon Brion.[12][13] West utilized the sounds created by the 808 and manipulated its pitch to produce a distorted, electronic sound, an effect he referred to as "heartbreak". He felt the characteristic of the sound was representative of his state of mind.[9] According to West, the fact that Hawaii's area code was "808" was coincidental, as he had already developed the album's title before being informed.[14] The realization inspired him to pursue his direction with the album, however.[10] In terms of musical direction, West's intentions, according to Mike Dean, were to go against the typical sound of hip hop beat, instead evoking the presence of tribal drums.[15] Overall, West maintained a "minimal but functional" approach towards the album's studio production.[12][16]

The album makes prominent use of the voice audio processor technology of Auto-Tune. West had previously experimented with the technology on The College Dropout for the background vocals of "Jesus Walks" and "Never Let Me Down", but he had not used it for lead vocals until 2008. "We were working on the remixes for Lil Wayne's 'Lollipop' and Young Jeezy's 'Put On' and he fell in love with the Auto-Tune", producer Mike Dean explained.[15] Towards the end, West enlisted T-Pain for coaching on how to utilize the technology.[14] West himself openly stated that he loved using Auto-Tune and was dismayed that the term has been commonly associated with being "wack".[17] He considers the technology "the funnest thing to use" and compared the situation to when he was a child and thought the color pink was cool until someone told him "it was gay", producing an analogy of how the views of society can rob people of their confidence and self-esteem.[17] He later went on to state that he enjoyed the electronic feel produced by Auto-Tune and sought out to juxtapose the mechanical sounds with the traditional sounds of taiko drums and choir monks.[18]

West credits rapper Kid Cudi, who had signed with his G.O.O.D. Music record label, with assisting in the creation of the album's stark, brooding sound.[19][20] After receiving a copy of his 2008 mixtape A Kid Named Cudi, West became an avid fan, especially in regards to the hit single "Day 'n' Nite."[19] West surprised Kid Cudi with a phone call, and had him flown over to Hawaii to work on 808s & Hearbreak. The pair worked side by side in the studio while playing films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind silently. In the end, Kid Cudi co-wrote four songs on 808s & Heartbreak.[19] In an interview, West told Rolling Stone, "His writing is just so pure and natural and important. [That's] more important than where things chart."[19]

Young Jeezy contributed a rap verse on the track "Amazing" while "See You in My Nightmares" is a duet with Lil Wayne. Singer-songwriter Esthero provided the few female vocals found on the album; credited under birth name Jenny-Bea Englishman, she co-wrote three tracks.[21] When "RoboCop" appeared on the Internet, West disclaimed responsibility and was upset that the leak had occurred as the track was an unfinished version.[22] Mike Dean had previously stated that the track was expected to receive additional treatment by Herbie Hancock before the album's release.[15]

808s & Heartbreak is a radical departure from West's previous hip hop albums.[23] According to The Independent, West abandoned his customary hip hop sound in favor of sparse, drum machine-based electropop;[24]Pitchfork's Scott Plagenhoef categorized the album as "an introspective, minimal electro-pop record",[25] and 33⅓ writer Kirk Walker Graves said its music is avant-garde electropop.[26] In the opinion of Rolling Stone's Brian Hiatt, the record was a "downbeat detour into depressive electro pop",[27] while another writer for the magazine called it an "introspective, synthpop album",[28] According to Arsh Bains from 36 Chapters, the genres electropop, synthpop, and experimental pop were a few of the many categorizations offered for the album after it was released.[29]

The music of 808s & Heartbreak draws heavily on electronic elements, particularly virtual synthesis, the Roland TR-808 drum machine, and explicitly auto-tuned vocal tracks.[30] Tracks on the album utilize step input drum machine and synth-bass parts.[30] Step input sequencing, a product of vintage analogue devices limited to recording only 16 individual notes, was popular in music production during the 1980s,[31] but also became available in digital workstations.[32] The album's music features austere production and elements such as dense drums, lengthy strings, droning synths, and somber piano.[33] Andy Kellman of AllMusic writes of the music, "Several tracks have almost as much in common with irrefutably bleak post-punk albums, such as New Order's Movement and The Cure's Pornography, as contemporary rap and R&B."[33] These musical elements help convey moods of despair and dejection that reflect the album's subject matter.[33] For The A.V. Club, Nathan Rabin described the album's music as "split[ting] the difference between the auto-tune R&B of T-Pain and the glacial electronic atmospherics of '80s new wave at its loneliest."[34]NJ.com columnist Trist McCall wrote that the record "stripped modern art-pop down to its iconic rudiments — beats, charismatic personalities, hand-selected melodies, and computer-assisted vocals."[35]

West's singing has been characterized as "flat" and "nearly unmelodic" which "underscores his own cyborgish detachment."[36][33] Andre Grant of HipHopDX wrote that "to combat this trenchant melancholia, he poured himself into an all-autotunes R&B album" which would prove divisive in hip hop.[37] Canadian writer Stephen Marche viewed that West used "the shallow musical gimmickry of Auto-Tune, a program designed to eliminate individuality, and produced a hauntingly personal album."[38]

Most of West's lyrics are directed at an ex-lover.[33] In Robert Christgau's opinion, 808s & Heartbreak is a "slow, sad-ass and self-involved ... breakup album",[36] while Plagenhoef found it "steeped in regret, pain, and even more self-examination than a typical Kanye West album".[25] West refers to an ex-lover's treatment of him as "the coldest story ever told" on "Heartless", and on "RoboCop", she is called a "spoiled little L.A. girl" comparable to the antagonist in the 1990 film Misery.[33] On "Paranoid", West describes a lover who "worries about the wrong things" and is pushing him away with her distrustful ways of thinking.[39] With the introspective "Love Lockdown", West discusses the aftermath of a failed romantic relationship.[40] On "Welcome to Heartbreak", West's character faces an existential crisis as he dispassionately recounts sitting alone on a flight, with a laughing family seated ahead of him.[33] The song harbors lamentful lyrics that reflect on the cost of past decisions and the emptiness of fame and luxury.[41] West longs for his late mother on the album's penultimate track "Coldest Winter."[33] The track contains an interpolation of the desolate 1983 song "Memories Fade" by Tears for Fears.[11] According to Robert Christgau, the closing "Pinocchio Story" is "the only track here about what's really bringing [West] down: not the loss of his girlfriend but the death of his mother, during cosmetic surgery that somewhere not too deep down he's sure traces all too directly to his alienated fame."[36]

The artwork for 808s & Heartbreak followed the minimalist style of the album. The cover art features a deflated heart-shaped balloon.[42] It was photographed by Kristen Yiengst and designed by Virgil Abloh and Willo Perron,[43] and the deluxe edition's artwork was made by pop artistKaws.[42][11] The album's artwork also include photographs of West, taken by Willy Vanderperre,[11] and a photograph of West kissing his mother on the cheek, taken by Danny Clinch.[11][43] In 2013, Complex named it the best rap album cover of the past five years.[44]

On September 24, West announced that he had finished the album and would be releasing it sometime in November. In his blog post, he wrote "I changed my album to November something cause I finished the album and I felt like it..I want y'all to hear it as soon as possible".[45] West later stated that the album would be released on November 25, 2008.[46] However, Island Def Jam, the distributing label, brought the date forward by one day to capitalize on Thanksgiving weekend.[47]808s & Heartbreak was also released on November 24, 2008 in the United Kingdom and the Philippines.[48] A limited edition in a digipak case was first released in Germany on November 21, 2008.[48] A special edition of the album was released on December 16 that contains the album in CD and dual LP format, and also features album artwork redone by the artist of the original cover, Kaws.[49]

On October 16, West released an excerpt of "Coldest Winter" on the radio station Power 106 in Los Angeles. The track recreates elements of the song "Memories Fade" by the band Tears for Fears.[50] The song "Paranoid" later leaked onto the Internet and features Mr Hudson in the chorus. A remixed version of "Paranoid" was reported to feature pop singer Rihanna, but did not materialize.[51] Also appearing prior to the release date were "Amazing" featuring Young Jeezy, "See You in My Nightmares" featuring Lil Wayne, "Street Lights", "Say You Will", "Welcome to Heartbreak" and "Bad News".[51] An additional track, "Pinocchio Story" is a freestyle recorded at a live concert in Singapore. It was included in the album at the request of Beyoncé Knowles.[52]

On October 14, West, in collaboration with Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft, hosted a promotional album listening event at Ace Gallery.[53] Over 700 guests were invited to preview the entirety of 808s & Heartbreak. Under Beecroft's guidance, the event featured approximately forty nude women wearing nothing besides wool masks who silently stood in the center of the room.[53] The women were illuminated by multicolored lights that would change as the music progressed.[53] When it came time for him to speak, West stated that he'd been a fan of Beecroft's work and strong imagery, saying that he liked the idea of nudity because "society told us to wear clothes at a certain point". Beecroft had been contacted a month prior and conceptualized and generated the installation in a week.[53] Beecroft admitted that while he had caught her offguard, she had the opportunity to hear the album for herself and heard things that touched her own life.[53] Five days later, promotional photos for the album by photographer Willy Vanderperre were released. The images portrayed West wearing a grey glen plaid suit, large browline glasses, and a heart-shaped pin.[54]

In October 2009, West was scheduled to embark on a tour, Fame Kills: Starring Kanye West and Lady Gaga tour, in promotion of 808s & Heartbreak and Lady Gaga's The Fame. It was canceled on October 1, 2009, without reason.[55] Several songs from the album were performed by West during his live VH1 Storytellers performance, such as "Heartless", "Amazing" and "Say You Will."[56] In the interim, director Nabil Elderkin directed two additional promotional videos for the album. "Welcome to Heartbreak", which featured an artistic use of liberal compression artifacts, was released in June 2009. A remixed version of "Coldest Winter" was released in February 2010. This video featured a woman in a wedding gown running away from a cult group through a moonlit forest.

On September 26, 2015, West performed the album in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.[57] On October 20, 2015, West released a remix of "Say You Will" featuring vocals by American composer and violinist Caroline Shaw onto his SoundCloud account.[58]

808s & Heartbreak received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 75, based on 36 reviews.[60] Chris Richards from The Washington Post called it "an information-age masterpiece",[68] while USA Today critic Steve Jones said "West deftly uses the 808 drum machine and Auto-Tune vocal effect to channel his feelings of hurt, anger and doubt through his well-crafted lyrics".[67] Dan Cairns from The Sunday Times stated, "This so should not work...Yet 808s & Heartbreak is a triumph, recklessly departing from the commercially copper-bottomed script and venturing far beyond West’s comfort zone."[66]Rolling Stone's Jody Rosen commended West's incorporation of the Roland TR-808 drum machine and described the album as "Kanye's would-be Here, My Dear or Blood on the Tracks, a mournful song-suite that swings violently between self-pity and self-loathing".[65] In the Chicago Tribune, Greg Kot called it West's "most radical yet" and said while West's fans may be disappointed, "this one is for him. It remains to be seen if he goes back to making records for everybody else. For now, this is one fascinatingly perverse detour."[69]PopMatters critic Dave Heaton was impressed by West's "song and album construction, and with the way he captures a particular feeling through unusual, evocative, carefully crafted music that’s both simple and complex, cold and warm, mechanical and human, melodic and harsh".[70] Writing for MSN Music, Robert Christgau found it "brilliant" with a unique "dark sound" and "engaging tunes", despite a second-half drop-off, and praised West's use of Auto-Tune, which he felt "both undercuts his self-importance and adds physical reality to tales of alienated fame that might otherwise be pure pity parties".[36]

In a less enthusiastic review, The Independent found West's "immersion in personal misery" uncomfortable and commented that the "stylistic tropes quickly become irritating".[64]AllMusic editor Andy Kellman stated "no matter its commendable fearlessness, the album is a listless, bleary trudge along West's permafrost".[33]Charles Aaron from Spin criticized the songs' musical structures, calling the album "a long processional that starts and restarts and never reaches the ceremony".[71]Slant Magazine's Wilson McBee panned West's singing,[72] while Jon Caramanica from The New York Times singled it out as the "weakness for which this album will ultimately be remembered, some solid songs notwithstanding."[13] Caramanica wrote that, "at best, it is a rough sketch for a great album, with ideas he would have typically rendered with complexity, here distilled to a few words, a few synthesizer notes, a lean drumbeat. At worst, it’s clumsy and underfed, a reminder that all of that ornamentation served a purpose".[13]Chicago Sun-Times writer Jim DeRogatis stated, "If West had interspersed the more mechanical tracks with some that were the exact opposite—say, simple piano interludes provided by his old collaborators John Legend or Jon Brion—he might have made a masterpiece. Instead, he's merely given us an extremely intriguing, sporadically gripping, undeniably fearless and altogether unexpected piece of his troubled soul."[73]

808s & Heartbreak was voted the tenth best album of 2008 in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of prominent American critics.[74] The album was also named one of the ten best albums of 2008 by a number of publications, including the Associated Press (number four),[74]The Hartford Courant (number seven), NOW (number four), The Observer (number eight), Vibe (no order) and Time (number six).[75][76][77]Pitchfork named 808s & Heartbreak the twenty-first best album of 2008.[78] Dan Leroy of LA Weekly cited it as one of the top ten hip hop albums of the year.[79]Jam! named it the top album of 2008.[80]Chicago Sun-Times writer Jim DeRogatis included the album on his list of the year's ten best albums and wrote, "With every listen, the poignancy of these personal tales of loss grows deeper, perfectly matched by the cold, lonely, robotic but nevertheless winning grooves that accompany them. Upon further reflection, it is a brave and daring 4-star effort that deserves to be heard by any fan of adventurous pop music."[81]Time Out New York featured the album on its list of the Best and Worst Albums of 2008. The magazine's writer Colin St. John cited 808s & Heartbreak as one of the worst of 2008, and editor Steve Smith named it third on his best-of list, while calling the album "the year's most misunderstood triumph."[82]

In 2009, Rolling Stone ranked it number 63 on its list of the 100 Best Album of the Decade,[92] then in 2014 they named it one of the 40 most groundbreaking albums of all time,[93] in which it was only one of two albums to be released in the 21st century. Q named it the decade's 81st best record. On similar lists, Slant Magazine and PopMatters ranked it 124th and 42nd, respectively.[74]

In its first week of sales, 808s & Heartbreak reached the number one spot on Billboard 200, selling 450,145 units in its first week.[94] In the last week of the year, 808s & Heartbreak sold 165,100 copies, jumping from the eleventh spot back up to the number five on the Billboard 200.[95] The album moved up again the following week, selling 70,900 units and landing at number three.[96] On January 27, 2009, 808s & Heartbreak was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, serving as West's fourth album to ship one million copies in the United States.[97][98][99] As of June 14, 2013, it has sold 1.7 million copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan.[100][101]

Despite the debate and uncertainty surrounding the album's conception, its preceding singles demonstrated outstanding chart performances. Upon its release, the lead single "Love Lockdown" debuted at number three on the BillboardHot 100 and became a "Hot Shot Debut". It is the highest debut of West's career, the second highest debut on the Hot 100 that year and the tenth song of the millennium to debut in the top three.[102] Grossing over 1.3 million copies at the iTunes Store alone, the single was certified platinum by the RIAA by the end of the year.[103] On August 18, 2010, it was certified triple platinum by the RIAA, for shipments of three million units in the US.[97] The single was also met by positive reviews from music critics, eventually culminating with being crowned "Song of the Year" by Time.[104] The second single, "Heartless" performed similarly and became his second consecutive "Hot Shot Debut" by debuting at number four on the Billboard Hot 100.[105] It was certified double platinum by the RIAA, having shipped two million units in the US.[97] Due in part to the momentum produced by the album's release, certain tracks were met by chart success despite not actually being released as singles.[106] The tenth track "See You in My Nightmares" became yet another "Hot Shot Debut," peaking at number twenty-one in the US and at number twenty-two in Canada while the fourth track "Amazing" charted at 81 on the Hot 100.[106][107] Following suit, "Welcome to Heartbreak" peaked at number eighty-seven on the Pop 100.[106]

Before its release, reaction to 808s & Heartbreak was mixed, ranging from anticipation to bewilderment and indifference to the album's concept. Upon the unveiling of the lead single "Love Lockdown" at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, music audiences were taken aback by the uncharacteristic production style and the presence of Auto-Tune.[108] The negative feedback intensified when West revealed that the entire album would be primarily sung with Auto-Tune rather than rapped and would focus on themes of love and heartache.[7][109]

Numerous hip hop fans and certain rappers mocked West for becoming "sappy" while others deemed the upcoming LP as a throwaway experimental album.[108] Comparisons were drawn to Electric Circus, an album recorded by West's labelmate and close friend Common.[110] MTV eventually interviewed Common to share his thoughts and views on the artistic direction of the album. Common expressed both his understanding and his support for West's intentions, stating "I love it. I'mma tell you, as an artist, you wanna be free. I'mma do what I feel. You can't just cater to the audience. You gotta say, 'Hey, y'all, this is where I'm at.' For him to do an album called 808s and Heartbreak, you know that's where he is at this moment. I heard some songs, and I think it's fresh. I think the people are ready for it."[111]

West received similar approval from Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy, both of whom contributed to the album. During an interview, when asked what music today inspires him, Wayne stated "everybody's doing their thing, but they're not exciting. Everybody is doing the same thing. That's terrible. Do I love the music that's out right now? I love it with a passion. Does it motivate me? Not one bit. That's because 808s & Heartbreak isn't out yet."[112] Despite the approval from the rap superstars, as well as the record-breaking chart performances of the first two singles, hip hop audiences remained indifferent towards the album, predicting it would flop.[108] Responding to reviews, West stated that he didn't care about sales or getting good ratings, saying that it came from the heart and that's all that matters to him. When asked about the current state of hip hop, West compared it to a high school, stating that hip hop used to be all about being fearless and standing out, and that now it is about being afraid and fitting in.[113]Michael Jackson was an admirer of the album, with his daughter saying he played it for her "all the time".[114]

Drake was part of the wave of rappers whose music was shaped by the album.

Although West designed it as a melancholic pop album, 808s & Heartbreak had a significant effect on hip hop music.[115] While his decision to sing about love, loneliness, and heartache for the entirety of the album was at first heavily criticized by music audiences and the album predicted to be a flop, its subsequent critical acclaim and commercial success encouraged other mainstream rappers to take greater creative risks with their music.[108][111] During the release of The Blueprint 3, New York rap mogul Jay-Z revealed that his next studio album would be an experimental effort, stating, "... it's not gonna be a #1 album. That's where I'm at right now. I wanna make the most experimental album I ever made."[116] Jay-Z elaborated that like West, he was unsatisfied with contemporary hip hop, was being inspired by indie-rockers like Grizzly Bear and asserted his belief that the indie rock movement would play an important role in the continued evolution of hip hop.[117]

808s was the first album of that kind, you know? It was the first, like, black new wave album. I didn't realize I was new wave until [Yeezus]. Thus my connection with Peter Saville, with Raf Simons, with high-end fashion, with minor chords. I hadn't heard new wave! But I am a black new wave artist.

The album impacted hip hop stylistically and laid the groundwork for a new wave of hip hop artists who generally eschewed typical rap braggadocio for intimate subject matter and introspection, including B.o.B, Kid Cudi, Childish Gambino,[119]Frank Ocean,[120] and Drake.[121][122] Jake Paine of HipHopDX dubbed the album as "our Chronic", noting West's effect on hip hop with 808s & Heartbreak as "a sound, no different than the way Dr. Dre's synthesizer challenged the boom-bap of the early '90s."[121]Fact described the record as an "art-pop masterpiece [which] broke the shackles of generations of one-upmanship [in hip hop]."[123]Rolling Stone journalist Matthew Trammell asserted that the record was ahead of its time and wrote in a 2012 article, "Now that popular music has finally caught up to it, 808s & Heartbreak has revealed itself to be Kanye’s most vulnerable work, and perhaps his most brilliant."[124]

According to Greg Kot, 808s & Heartbreak initiated the "wave of inward-looking sensitivity" and "emo"-inspired rappers during the late 2000s: "[It] presaged everything from the introspective hip-hop of Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon: The End of Day (2009) to the wispy crooning, plush keyboards and light mechanical beats of Bon Iver's Justin Vernon and British dub-step balladeer James Blake."[125]Consequence of Sound credited it with shaping subsequent developments in "indie R&B or electropop or whatever you want to call it": "808s' is flooded with R&B and it digitizes the raw emotion and isolated feelings that [James Blake and The Weeknd] have carved their brands out of today."[126] Craig D. Linsey from The Village Voice wrote that the album's "naked humanity ... practically set off the emo-rap/r&b boom that everyone from Drake to Frank Ocean to The Weeknd now traffic in."[127] Marcus Scott of GIANT said rappers such as B.o.B, Drake, and Kid Cudi followed West's album with similarly-minded works, citing West's introspective, emotional themes and synthpop/"Vangelis-inspired" music as influences.[128] In the opinion of Billboard senior editor Alex Gale, the album was "the equivalent of (Bob) Dylan going electric, and you still hear that all the time, in hip-hop and outside of hip-hop."[129] Drake's 2009 mixtape So Far Gone received comparisons from critics to 808s & Heartbreak.[130] Todd Martens of the Los Angeles Times cited 808s & Heartbreak as "the template [...] for essentially the entirety of Drake's young career", and that wrote that he "shares West's love for mood and never-ending existential analysis".[131] In a 2009 interview, Drake cited West as "the most influential person" in shaping his own sound.[130] In 2014, Rolling Stone named 808s & Heartbreak one of the 40 most groundbreaking albums of all time.[132]

1.
Album
–
Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves

2.
Kanye West
–
Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, fashion designer, and entrepreneur. Intent on pursuing a career as a rapper, West released his debut album The College Dropout in 2004 to widespread critical and commercial success. He went on to pursue a variety of different styles on subsequent albums Late Registration, Graduation, and 808s & Heartbreak. In 2010, he released his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to rave reviews from critics, West released his abrasive sixth album, Yeezus, to further critical praise in 2013. His seventh album, The Life of Pablo, was released in 2016, Wests outspoken views and life outside of music have received significant mainstream attention. He has been a frequent source of controversy for his conduct at award shows, on social media and he is the founder and head of the creative content company DONDA. His 2014 marriage to television personality Kim Kardashian has also been subject to media coverage. He has won a total of 21 Grammy Awards, making him one of the most awarded artists of all time, three of his albums have been included and ranked on Rolling Stones 2012 update of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. He has also included in a number of Forbes annual lists. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005 and 2015, West was born on June 8,1977 in Atlanta, Georgia. His parents divorced when he was three years old, after the divorce, he and his mother moved to Chicago, Illinois. His father, Ray West, is a former Black Panther and was one of the first black photojournalists at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ray West was later a Christian counselor, and in 2006, opened the Good Water Store and Café in Lexington Park, Maryland with startup capital from his son. West, was a professor of English at Clark Atlanta University, West was raised in a middle-class background, attending Polaris High School in suburban Oak Lawn, Illinois after living in Chicago. At the age of 10, West moved with his mother to Nanjing, China, according to his mother, West was the only foreigner in his class, but settled in well and quickly picked up the language, although he has since forgotten most of it. When asked about his grades in school, West replied, I got As. West demonstrated an affinity for the arts at an early age and his mother recalled that she first took notice of Wests passion for drawing and music when he was in the third grade. Growing up in Chicago, West became deeply involved in its hip hop scene and he started rapping in the third grade and began making musical compositions in the seventh grade, eventually selling them to other artists

3.
Burbank, California
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Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States,12 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The population at the 2010 census was 103,340, Entertainment, Nickelodeon Animation Studios, NBC, Cartoon Network Studios with the West Coast branch of Cartoon Network, and Insomniac Games. The city is home to Bob Hope Airport. Burbank consists of two areas, a downtown/foothill section, in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains. Burbank is the easternmost city in the San Fernando Valley, Burbanks neighbor, Glendale, is the westernmost city in the San Gabriel Valley. The city was referred to as Beautiful Downtown Burbank on Laugh-In, the city was named after David Burbank, a New Hampshire-born dentist and entrepreneur who established a sheep ranch there in 1867. Historically, this area was the scene of a skirmish which resulted in the unseating of the Spanish Governor of California. Remnants of the battle reportedly were found many years later in the vicinity of Warner Bros. Studio when residents dug up cannonballs, by 1876, the San Fernando Valley became the largest wheat-raising area in Los Angeles County. But the droughts of the 1860s and 1870s underlined the need for water supplies. A professionally trained dentist, Dr. Burbank began his career in Waterville and he joined the great migration westward in the early 1850s and, by 1853 was living in San Francisco. At the time the American Civil War broke out he was well established in his profession as a dentist in Pueblo de Los Angeles. In 1867, he purchased Rancho La Providencia from David W. Alexander and Francis Mellus, Dr. Burbanks property reached nearly 9,200 acres at a cost of $9,000. Dr. Burbank wouldnt acquire full titles to both properties until after a decision known as the Great Partition was made in 1871 dissolving the Rancho San Rafael. Dr. Burbank also later owned the Burbank Theatre, which opened on November 27,1893, though the theater was intended to be an opera house, instead it staged plays and became known nationally. The theatre featured famous actors of the time including Fay Bainter and Marjorie Rambeau, when the area that became Burbank was settled in the 1870s and 1880s, the streets were aligned along what is now Olive Avenue, the road to the Cahuenga Pass and downtown Los Angeles. These were largely the roads the Indians traveled and the settlers took their produce down to Los Angeles to sell. At the time, the primary long-distance transportation methods available to San Fernando Valley residents were stagecoach, stagecoaching between Los Angeles and San Francisco through the Valley began in 1858

4.
Synth-pop
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Synth-pop is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic, art rock, disco, and particularly the Krautrock of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the new wave movement of the late-1970s to the mid-1980s. In Japan, Yellow Magic Orchestras success opened the way for bands such as P-Model, Plastics. The development of polyphonic synthesizers, the definition of MIDI. This, its adoption by the acts from the New Romantic movement, together with the rise of MTV. Synth-pop is sometimes deployed interchangeably with electropop, but electropop may also denote a variant of synth-pop that places emphasis on a harder. In the late 1980s duos such as Erasure and Pet Shop Boys adopted a style that was successful on the US dance-charts. Some artists and bands were criticised for gender bending, Synth-pop was defined by its primary use of synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers, sometimes using them to replace all other instruments. Borthwick and Moy have described the genre as diverse but, many synth-pop musicians had limited musical skills, relying on the technology to produce or reproduce the music. The result was often minimalist, with grooves that were woven together from simple repeated riffs often with no harmonic progression to speak of. Early synth-pop has been described as eerie, sterile, and vaguely menacing, using droning electronics with little change in inflection, common lyrical themes of synth-pop songs were isolation, urban anomie, and feelings of being emotionally cold and hollow. Synthesizers were increasingly used to imitate the conventional and clichéd sound of orchestras, thin, treble-dominant, synthesized melodies and simple drum programmes gave way to thick, and compressed production, and a more conventional drum sound. Lyrics were generally optimistic, dealing with more traditional subject matter for pop music such as romance, escapism. According to music writer Simon Reynolds, the hallmark of 1980s synth-pop was its emotional, at times operatic singers such as Marc Almond, Alison Moyet and Annie Lennox. Because synthesizers removed the need for groups of musicians, these singers were often part of a duo where their partner played all the instrumentation. Later synth-pop saw a shift to a style influenced by other genres. Electronic musical synthesizers that could be used practically in a recording studio became available in the mid-1960s, the portable Minimoog, which allowed much easier use, particularly in live performance was widely adopted by progressive rock musicians such as Richard Wright of Pink Floyd and Rick Wakeman of Yes

5.
Contemporary R&B
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Contemporary R&B, also known as simply R&B, is a music genre that combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, pop, hip hop and dance. The genre features a record production style, drum machine-backed rhythms, an occasional saxophone-laced beat to give a jazz feel. Electronic influences are becoming a trend and the use of hip hop or dance-inspired beats are typical, although the roughness. Contemporary R&B vocalists are often known for their use of melisma, popularized by such as Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Craig David, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston. That same year, Teddy Riley began producing R&B recordings that included hip hop influences and this combination of R&B style and hip hop rhythms was termed new jack swing and was applied to artists such as Bobby Brown, Keith Sweat, Al B. Guy, Jodeci and Bell Biv DeVoe, the style became less popular by the end of the 1990s, but later experienced a resurgence. In 1990 Mariah Carey released Vision of Love as her debut single and it was immensely popular peaking at number 1 in many worldwide charts including the Billboard Hot 100, and it propelled Mariahs carrier. The song is said to have popularized the use of melisma. During the mid-1990s, Whitney Houstons The Bodyguard, Original Soundtrack Album sold over 40 million copies becoming the best-selling soundtrack of all time. Janet Jacksons self-titled fifth studio album janet. which came after her historic multimillion-dollar contract with Virgin Records, sold over twenty million copies worldwide. Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey recorded several Billboard Hot 100 No.1 hits, including One Sweet Day, Carey also released a remix of her 1995 single Fantasy, with Ol Dirty Bastard as a feature, a collaboration format that was unheard of at this point. Carey, Boyz II Men and TLC released albums in 1994 and 1995—Daydream, II and CrazySexyCool. In the late 1990s, neo soul, which added 1970s soul influences to the hip hop soul blend, arose, led by such as DAngelo, Erykah Badu. Hill and Missy Elliott further blurred the line between R&B and hip hop by recording both styles, beginning in 1995, the Grammy Awards enacted the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album, with II by Boyz II Men becoming the first recipient. The award was received by TLC for CrazySexyCool in 1996, Tony Rich for Words in 1997, Erykah Badu for Baduizm in 1998. At the end of 1999, Billboard magazine ranked Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson as the first, simultaneously, in the second half of the 1990s, The Neptunes and Timbaland set influential precedence on contemporary R&B and hip hop music. R&B acts such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Usher, in 2001, Alicia Keys released Fallin as her debut single. It peaking at one on the Billboard Hot 100, Mainstream Top 40

6.
Jay-Z
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Shawn Corey Carter, known professionally as Jay Z, is an American rapper, businessman, and investor. He is one of the musicians of all time, having sold more than 100 million records. MTV ranked him the Greatest MC of all time in 2006, Rolling Stone ranked three of his albums—Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint, and The Black Album —among the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2014, Forbes estimated his net worth at nearly $520 million, Jay Z co-owns the New York 40/40 Club sports bar, and is the co-creator of the clothing line Rocawear. He is the president of Def Jam Recordings, co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records. He also founded the sports agency Roc Nation Sports and is a certified NBA, as an artist, he holds the record for most number one albums by a solo artist on the Billboard 200 with 13. He has also had four number ones on the Billboard Hot 100, in 2009, he was ranked the tenth-most successful artist of the 2000s by Billboard as well as the fifth top solo male artist and fourth top rapper behind Eminem, Nelly, and 50 Cent. He was also ranked the 88th-greatest artist of all time by Rolling Stone, Jay Z married Singer-Songwriter Beyoncé in 2008. Shawn Carter was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Marcy Houses and he and his three siblings were raised by their mother, Gloria Carter after their father, Adness Reeves abandoned the family. Reeves would later meet and reconcile with Jay Z before dying from liver failure in 2003, Jay Z claims in his lyrics that in 1982, at the age of 12, he shot his older brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewelry. Along with future rapper AZ, Carter attended Eli Whitney High School in Brooklyn until it was closed down, according to his interviews and lyrics, during this period he sold crack cocaine and was shot at three times. According to his mother, Carter used to wake up his siblings at night banging out drum patterns on the kitchen table and she bought him a boom box for his birthday, sparking his interest in music. He began freestyling and writing lyrics, known as Jazzy around the neighborhood, Carter later adopted the showbiz/stage name Jay-Z in homage to his mentor Jaz-O. He would drop the hyphen in 2013, Jay Z can be briefly heard on several of Jaz-Os early recordings in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including The Originators and Hawaiian Sophie. Jay Z became embroiled in several battles with rapper LL Cool J in the early 1990s and he first became known to a wide audience on the posse cut Show and Prove on the 1994 Big Daddy Kane album Daddys Home. When I would leave the stage to go change outfits, I would bring out Jay Z and Positive K and let them freestyle until I came back to the stage. The young Jay Z appeared on a song by Big L, Da Graveyard, and on Mic Geronimos Time to Build. His first official rap single was called In My Lifetime, for which he released a music video, an unreleased music video was also produced for the B-side I Cant Get with That

7.
Graduation (album)
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Graduation is the third studio album by American hip hop recording artist and record producer Kanye West. It was released on September 11,2007, by Roc-A-Fella Records, Recording sessions for the album took place during 2005 to 2007 at Chung King Studios, Sony Music Studios in New York City, at Chalice Studios and The Record Plant in Los Angeles. It was primarily produced by West himself, with contributions from DJ Toomp, as well as Mike Dean, Nottz, Brian All Day Miller, Eric Hudson, Warryn Campbell, Gee Roberson, Plain Pat and Jon Brion. It features guest contributions from artists, including Mos Def, Dwele, T-Pain, Lil Wayne, DJ Premier, the albums cover artwork was designed by Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami. Toward this end, West incorporated synthesizer sounds into his production and dabbled with electronic music, lyrically, the album is more introspective in comparison to its predecessors, as West dedicated much of Graduation towards analyzing himself and conveying his ambivalent outlook on his newfound fame. It continues the theme of Wests previous two studio albums, The College Dropout and Late Registration. The album debuted at one on the US Billboard 200. It produced five singles, including the international hits Cant Tell Me Nothing, Stronger, the outcome of the competition marks a turning point in hip-hop culture, when the dominance of gangsta rap in mainstream hip-hop was brought to an end. Graduation received positive reviews from most critics and earned West several accolades, the album has sold 2,700,000 copies in the US and has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album demonstrates yet another distinctive progression in Wests musical style, Kanye West was particularly influenced by house music, a subgenre of electronic dance music that first originated in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois in the early 1980s. West has stated growing up, he would listen to hip-hop music at home or in his car. While he rarely listened to house at home, he felt it was an important part of his culture. Along with house music, Graduation contains samples and music elements of euro-disco, hard rock, electronica, lounge, progressive rock, synth-pop, electro, krautrock, dub, reggae, and dancehall. Also, for much of the studio album, Kanye West modified his style of rapping and adopted a dilatory. West altered his vocabulary, he utilized less of the percussive, rhythmic consonants in favor of the more smoother, in addition to U2, West drew inspiration from other arena rock bands such as The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin for the melodies and chord progressions of his songs. He also chose to back on the guest appearances, limiting himself to just one single guest rap verse on the entire studio album. Largely due to all this and the inclusion of the layered electronic synthesizers, but he also acknowledged the fact that the differences did not right away and without a doubt make Graduation a good album. However, he felt it was a representation of the music he was listening to at that time, Kanye West began working on Graduation immediately after releasing his second studio album Late Registration

8.
Hip hop music
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It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements, MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, while often used to refer solely to rapping, hip hop more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. Hip hops early evolution occurred as sampling technology and drum machines became available and affordable. Turntablist techniques such as scratching and beatmatching developed along with the breaks and Jamaican toasting, rapping developed as a vocal style in which the artist speaks or chants along rhythmically with an instrumental or synthesized beat. The Sugarhill Gangs 1979 song Rappers Delight is widely regarded to be the first hip hop record to gain popularity in the mainstream. The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles, prior to the 1980s, hip hop music was largely confined within the United States. However, during the 1980s, it began to spread to scenes in dozens of countries. New school hip hop was the wave of hip hop music, originating in 1983–84 with the early records of Run-D. M. C. The Golden age hip hop period was a period between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. Notable artists from this era include the Juice Crew, Public Enemy, & Rakim, Boogie Down Productions and KRS-One, EPMD, Slick Rick, Beastie Boys, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Ultramagnetic MCs, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest. Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop that often focuses on the violent lifestyles, in the West Coast hip hop style, G-funk dominated mainstream hip hop for several years during the 1990s. I. G. In the 1990s, hip hop began to diversify with other regional styles emerging, such as Southern rap, at the same time, hip hop continued to be assimilated into other genres of popular music, examples being Neo soul and nu metal. Hip hop became a pop music genre in the mid-1990s. The popularity of hip hop music continued through the 2000s, with hip hop influences also increasingly finding their way into mainstream pop, the United States also saw the success of regional styles such as crunk, a Southern genre that emphasized the beats and music more than the lyrics. Starting in 2005, sales of hip hop music in the United States began to severely wane, during the mid-2000s, alternative hip hop secured a place in the mainstream, due in part to the crossover success of artists such as OutKast and Kanye West. Creation of the hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash. However, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was known as disco rap. Cowboy later worked the hip hop cadence into a part of his stage performance, the first use of the term in print was in The Village Voice, by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop

9.
Kid Cudi
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Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi, better known by his stage name Kid Cudi, is an American recording artist and actor from Cleveland, Ohio. Cudi first gained major recognition following the release of his first official full-length project, the mixtape caught the attention of American rapper-producer Kanye West, who subsequently signed Cudi to his GOOD Music label imprint in late 2008. Cudi has since gone on to launch his own record label imprints, initially a rapper, Cudi has since added singer, songwriter, record producer, guitarist, music video director and film composer to his repertoire. As of 2017, Cudi has released six albums as a solo artist. In 2008, his debut single Day n Nite, led him to prominence, Cudis debut album Man on the Moon, The End of Day was later certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. In 2010, he released Man on the Moon II, The Legend of Mr. Rager, later in 2010, Cudi formed a rock band, now known as WZRD, with his long-time collaborator Dot da Genius, releasing one eponymous debut album, in early 2012. The album debuted at one on the Top Rock Albums chart. In April 2013, Cudi released Indicud, which became his highest-charting album on multiple charts, in February 2014, Cudi unexpectedly released his fourth album, Satellite Flight, The Journey to Mother Moon, exclusively to digital retailers with no promotion. With his originality and creativity, as well as the emotion he conveys in his music, Cudi has amassed a large following among high school students, college students. In 2010, Cudi ventured into acting when he began starring in the HBO series How to Make It in America, Cudi has since appeared in several feature films, including Goodbye World, Need for Speed and Entourage. In addition, he has made appearances on shows such as One Tree Hill, The Cleveland Show. In 2015, he was the bandleader on the IFC series, Kid Cudi was born Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi on January 30,1984, in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in Shaker Heights and Solon. He is the youngest of four children, with two brothers, Domingo and Dean, and a sister, Maisha and his mother, Elsie Harriet, is a middle-school choir teacher at Roxboro Middle School in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. His father, Lindberg Styles Mescudi, was a painter, substitute teacher. His father was of African-American and Mexican-American descent, while his mother is African-American, when he was eleven years old, Cudis father died of cancer, his passing had a significant effect on Cudis personality and subsequently his music. Cudi attended Shaker Heights High School for two years before transferring to Solon High School and he was expelled from the school for threatening to punch his principal and would later earn his GED. Cudi studied film at the University of Toledo, dropping out after a year and his subsequent plan to join the U. S. Navy didnt pan out because of his juvenile police record. Cudi first began rapping towards the end of his school career, inspired by alternative hip hop groups such as The Pharcyde

10.
Lil Wayne
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Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. known professionally as Lil Wayne, is an American hip hop recording artist and author from New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1991, at the age of nine, Lil Wayne joined Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label, in 1996, Lil Wayne joined the southern hip hop group Hot Boys, with his Cash Money label-mates Juvenile, Young Turk and Lil Doogie. Hot Boys debuted with Get It How U Live. that same year, Most of the groups success came with their platinum-selling album Guerrilla Warfare and the 1999 single Bling Bling. Along with being the flagship artist of Cash Money Records, Lil Wayne is also the Chief Executive Officer of his own imprint, Young Money Entertainment. Lil Waynes solo debut album Tha Block Is Hot, was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and his subsequent albums, Lights Out and 500 Degreez, went on to be certified gold. Wayne reached higher popularity with his fourth album Tha Carter, which was led by the single Go D. J. and his appearance on Destinys Childs Top 10 single Soldier, that same year. The album was followed by Tha Carter II, as well as several mixtapes, Wayne gained more prominence with his sixth album Tha Carter III, which became his most successful album to date, with first-week sales of over one million copies in the United States. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album and includes the hit singles Lollipop, A Milli, following the success of Tha Carter III, Wayne decided to record a rock-esque album titled Rebirth. The album, released in 2010, was certified gold by the RIAA, in March 2010, Lil Wayne began serving an 8-month jail sentence in New York after being convicted of criminal possession of a weapon stemming from an incident in July 2007. Waynes eighth album I Am Not a Human Being, was released during his incarceration and his 2011 album and first following his release, Tha Carter IV, sold 964,000 copies in its first week of availability in the United States. It includes the singles 6 Foot 7 Foot, How to Love, on September 27,2012, Lil Wayne passed Elvis Presley as the male with the most entries on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, with 109 songs. The record has since passed by other artists. Lil Waynes thirteenth studio album, Tha Carter V has been delayed multiple times and has no scheduled release date, Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. was born on September 27,1982, and grew up in the Hollygrove neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. His mother, a cook, gave birth to him when she was 19 years old and his parents divorced when he was 2, and his father permanently abandoned the family. Although Wayne and Birdman have a relationship and Birdman calls Carter his son, Waynes biological father. Lil Wayne has also spoken about his stepfather, Rabbit. Carter has a dedicated to Rabbit, who was murdered before Carter became a star. Carter enrolled in the program of Lafayette Elementary School and in the drama club of Eleanor McMain Secondary School

11.
Electronic music
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In general, a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, purely electronic sound production can be achieved using devices such as the theremin, sound synthesizer, and computer. During the 1920s and 1930s, electronic instruments were introduced and the first compositions for instruments were composed. Musique concrète, created in Paris in 1948, was based on editing together recorded fragments of natural and industrial sounds, Music produced solely from electronic generators was first produced in Germany in 1953. Electronic music was created in Japan and the United States beginning in the 1950s. An important new development was the advent of computers for the purpose of composing music, algorithmic composition was first demonstrated in Australia in 1951. In America and Europe, live electronics were pioneered in the early 1960s, during the 1970s to early 1980s, the monophonic Minimoog became once the most widely used synthesizer at that time in both popular and electronic art music. In the 1980s, electronic music became dominant in popular music, with a greater reliance on synthesizers, and the adoption of programmable drum machines. Electronically produced music became prevalent in the domain by the 1990s. Contemporary electronic music includes many varieties and ranges from art music to popular forms such as electronic dance music. Today, pop music is most recognizable in its 4/4 form. At the turn of the 20th century, experimentation with emerging electronics led to the first electronic musical instruments and these initial inventions were not sold, but were instead used in demonstrations and public performances. The audiences were presented with reproductions of existing music instead of new compositions for the instruments, while some were considered novelties and produced simple tones, the Telharmonium accurately synthesized the sound of orchestral instruments. It achieved viable public interest and made progress into streaming music through telephone networks. Critics of musical conventions at the time saw promise in these developments, ferruccio Busoni encouraged the composition of microtonal music allowed for by electronic instruments. He predicted the use of machines in future music, writing the influential Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, futurists such as Francesco Balilla Pratella and Luigi Russolo began composing music with acoustic noise to evoke the sound of machinery. They predicted expansions in timbre allowed for by electronics in the influential manifesto The Art of Noises, developments of the vacuum tube led to electronic instruments that were smaller, amplified, and more practical for performance. In particular, the theremin, ondes Martenot and trautonium were commercially produced by the early 1930s, from the late 1920s, the increased practicality of electronic instruments influenced composers such as Joseph Schillinger to adopt them

12.
Minimalism
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In visual arts, music, and other mediums, minimalism is a style that uses pared-down design elements. Minimalism began in post–World War II Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s, prominent artists associated with minimalism include Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. It derives from the reductive aspects of modernism and is interpreted as a reaction against abstract expressionism. Minimalism in music often features repetition and iteration such as those of the compositions of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, the term minimalist often colloquially refers to anything that is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has accordingly been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, and the automobile designs of Colin Chapman. The word was first used in English in the early 20th century to describe a 1913 composition by the Russian painter Kasimir Malevich of a square on a white ground. Guggenheim Museum curated by Lawrence Alloway also in 1966 that showcased Geometric abstraction in the American art world via Shaped canvas, Color Field, in the wake of those exhibitions and a few others the art movement called minimal art emerged. Minimal art is inspired in part by the paintings of Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Josef Albers, and the works of artists as diverse as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio Morandi. Minimalism was also a reaction against the painterly subjectivity of Abstract Expressionism that had been dominant in the New York School during the 1940s and 1950s. The philosopher or art historian who can envision me—or anyone at all—arriving at aesthetic judgments in this way reads shockingly more into himself or herself than into my article. They very explicitly stated that their art was not about self-expression, in general, minimalisms features included geometric, often cubic forms purged of much metaphor, equality of parts, repetition, neutral surfaces, and industrial materials. Robert Morris, a theorist and artist, wrote a three part essay, Notes on Sculpture 1-3, originally published across three issues of Artforum in 1966. In these essays, Morris attempted to define a conceptual framework and formal elements for himself and these essays paid great attention to the idea of the gestalt - parts. Bound together in such a way that create a maximum resistance to perceptual separation. Morris later described an art represented by a marked lateral spread, the general shift in theory of which this essay is an expression suggests the transition into what would later be referred to as postminimalism. Stellas decisions about structures on the front surface of the canvas were therefore not entirely subjective, in the show catalog, Carl Andre noted, Art excludes the unnecessary. Frank Stella has found it necessary to paint stripes, there is nothing else in his painting. Because of a tendency in art to exclude the pictorial, illusionistic and fictive in favor of the literal, there was a movement away from painterly